My Father is Not their Priority

Alas, I was in denial when I said my siblings had stopped shouting and screaming at me over my father's matter.

Yesterday when I was at my parents' place, my third sister adopted a very hostile tone with me as she 'talked' to me.

I had gone to my parents' place to speak to my father. I was worried about the operation. I wanted to be sure that he feels the way I feel about the 'need' for the surgery.

I asked him,"Are you scared?"

He replied,"Even if I am scared, I still have to do it, right?"

I mused,"Actually, if you don't do it, you will still live. You won't risk dying on the operating table."

He said with undoubted certainty,"If I have to live with a feeding tube like this, I'd rather die!"

So we are on the same page.

I went on to tell my father he should let his friend who had visited him during his first stay at the hospital know about his stay for the second operation.

When my third sister heard that, she immediately 'said',"NO! You MUST NOT let your friend know! After the operation, you will have an oxygen tube inside your mouth. You will have different tubes all over your body, remember?!! You CANNOT ask your friend to visit you DURING the operation. You CANNOT talk right after the operation!"

Duh. Who will ask their friend to visit them right after the operation?

Little did I know that was just a prelude to the impending scolding.

As I was sitting in the living room, my third sister 'asked' me what I would do if there were complications, meaning 'where (which hospital) are you going to put him if there are complications?'

I said,"Huh? I can't watch him die, right?"

She said,"He said he wants to go back to Malaysia to die there if there are complications."

My father nodded his head.

Well, that settles it, doesn't it, if it comes to that? So why ask?

Then came the bottomline,"We DON'T HAVE money!" (reads: Don't ask us for money to treat the complications.)

I didn't think of asking them for money if anything happens, anyway!

She started harping on the complications, complications, complications.

I kept quiet. The doctor had mentioned that risks for complications would be low ie. 2 or 3% compared to the last surgery.

But I knew she was not in a state to listen. So I didn't say anything.

Then came the real thing.

"NEXT WEEK IS A BAD WEEK FOR US! YOU WANT TO RUSH INTO IT! 5TH BRO-IN-LAW NEEDS TO WORK. I NEED TO WORK. YOUNGEST SISTER IS STARTING HER NEW JOB. WE CAN'T DRIVE HIM TO THE HOSPITAL!"

I was shocked,"I didn't ask you to drive him or us to the hospital! I will take him there myself!"

"YOU WANT TO RUSH THE OPERATION! IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HIM, YOU HAVE TO HANDLE IT!"

My father was upset. It was clear to him that my third sister was vehemently opposing to him going for the operation.

He spoke up,"I am for the surgery. You should not keep talking about negative things. What complications? Doctor already said it's very safe."

"HE IS A SPECIAL CASE. EVEN 5% CHANCE, HE GOT IT!"

I couldn't talk to her at all.

I could have explained to her that for the first operation, I was the one who asked the surgeon, in everybody's presence (excluding my father),"One of the reasons for not wanting to go through the operation is the great fear that he might die on the operating table. Can you give us a number on what the survival rate for the operation is?"

The doctor replied,"95%. We are not worried about the operation. We are more worried about the post-operation. He is a high-risk patient. High-risk because of his age. We are worried that his body may not be strong enough to fight the infection after the operation as there would be a large area of infection due to his condition."

Apparently, my siblings had only heard what they wanted to hear:

Our father had a 95% rate of survival from the condition!

If they had listened attentively, and googled for my father's condition, they would have known that survival rate for my father's condition was low. Very low in fact. Many die within 24 hours of nil treatment due to infection.

If not for the fact that he was in the private hospital, under the care of the competent surgeon, he would have died.

But I couldn't tell my third sister all this.

She was not in the state of mind to listen to me. She just wanted to shove "WE DON'T HAVE MONEY TO PAY FOR THE OPERATION!" down my throat.

I told her I didn't have the intention of asking them to pay.

She continued to harp on her complications,"Did you read the fine prints? Do you know that the hospital can transfer him to restructured hospitals if you can't pay?"

To which I replied,"By then, it wouldn't have been vital already. The operation would have been done."

"If you don't have money to pay, YOU CAN GO BANKRUPT!"

I said,"Bankrupt, bankrupt then."

She appeared agitated by my nonchalant response.

She said,"The 5th sister has guessed correctly. You just want to leave us out of the matter and do it your way."

Well, why don't you hazard a guess why I have to do this?

She 'explained' to my father that after I pay for this operation, I wouldn't have the money to pay for the first operation - and it has not been paid.

The thing that really hurts is this: my siblings were talking behind my back, when I am ready to fork out the money for the second operation alone to let my father go through the operation as soon as possible, purely out of love for my father.

It was also clear to me that my siblings had this 'plan' in mind: to let me settle the bulk of the bill for the first operation while the rest of them split up and pay the remaining sum.

As the devil's advocate, William thinks that they are so angry with me is because they feel that I have 'spoiled' their plan. They were hoping that by saying,"I don't have money." they either do not have to pay or pay less for the bill. And they were shocked to find out that I wanted to play the same game by claiming that I don't have money after paying for the 2nd operation.

Yes. I won't have enough to pay for the first operation after paying for the second, but I have never harboured the thought of claiming "I don't have money" even if I don't have. I would return to working full-time. I would try to think of ways to bring in more money to pay off the bill.

Everything can wait. My broken bedroom door without a knob can wait. My full-height shoe cabinet can wait. My bomb shelter feature wall can wait. Coco's education fund can wait (even though I know it can't). But my father can't wait.

I left in a huff. I could not stay in the house a second longer. My father was asking my third sister to stop. She would not.

In my utmost anger, I hurled a vulgarity phrase at her before I left.

Not the best testimony for God. But I have had it up to here.

They are so blinded by the lack of money or the reluctance to part with their money that their judgment is blinded, and accuse my father being blinded by his desire to have the second operation.

They are so anxious to keep their money to themselves that they are not willing to share how much they have in savings even when I told them openly that I have $40k, thinking that it would set their mind at ease to share since I have taken the first step in sharing.

They are so selfish towards my father that they would insist that the restructured hospital is better when clearly, the doctor at the restructured hospital does not have the relevant experience at my father's case and my father would be his guinea pig if he ever goes there.

They are so blinded by their unwillingness to pay for the bill that they insisted on delaying the treatment. They claimed that my father was not ready for the second operation when three doctors had already given the green light for my father to go under the knife, after questioning and checking, on top of running tests on him to make sure he was fit enough for the second surgery.

They insisted that my father should have the physique as any other 70-year-olds before he could go for the operation. I questioned that possibility,"Have you gone on a diet before? He doesn't consume meat or rice. For an adult, how can a milk diet suffice? How can milk alone provide enough fats or nutrition for an adult body?"

They said they haven't gone on a diet before, but milk is sufficient for an adult body.

This is how blinded they have become.

I asked William if I could have done it better, to avoid having the scenarios of my sisters shouting and screaming at me. Was it because I refused to discuss with them when they called for a discussion?

They held a discussion at my parents' place after my father was deemed fit, by the doctors, to go for the next operation.

They asked me to attend it at 3pm. I told them I was not free as Coco's exams were near.

At 5pm, my mother called. She asked me if I would be attending it. They seemed to be waiting for me.

I said no.

I asked my sister what they were going to discuss since it was straight forward: Father wants the operation at the private hospital, and he wants that surgeon who did his first operation.

She refused to divulge more but asked me to simply turn up.

My father told me the next day that they had pressured him to go to the restructured hospital and also, delay his treatment till the first bill's review was over.

I told him no. He may die if he goes to the restructured hospital because the doctor is not confident and he has never done this before.

William said that they are angry with me because I did not go for the 'discussion'. And the 'discussion' was not meant to be a discussion. It was meant to be a session where they pressure me to agree with their decision of delaying my father's treatment and going for the restructured hospital after the delay.

"Don't even think about you changing their mind at the 'discussion'. It was meant to change yours."

I was still hopeful,"Could I have prevented all the shouting and screaming from happening by coping it better?"

"No. They have different priorities. As long as their priority is not your father, there is nothing to discuss. They will not agree with you."

My confidante colleague asked if it could be because my siblings thought that I was eyeing my father's wealth and had ulterior motives behind my 'rush' for the surgery.

I replied,"My father has no wealth."

I have read a story about a guy whose wife was suffering from a terminal illness.

He spent all he had just to search for a hope.

His colleagues were talking behind his back,"He should not have given everything just to treat his wife. He is so stupid. He should let her be."

The guy wrote that they were saying the things they did because they did not have a family member suffering from such an illness. If they did, they would also give all they had to treat their loved ones.

And I had always thought this would be our stand.

Now I know, those colleagues that the guy had would not do what the guy did even if their loved ones were dying.

My father is not suffering from a terminal illness. He could be normal again and live for at least another 20 years after the second operation. He wants to go for the operation.

It is simple to me. I will give all I have to treat my father. It is a 90% success rate and complication risks are 2 to 3%. Why shouldn't I? If any of his children is suffering like this, my father would not hesitate to let us go for the second operation either, even if it means incurring a great debt.

I may be jumping to conclusions, but my gripe is: my siblings want me to absorb the bulk of the costs despite knowing that Coco's varsity education would be at stake when I take out my savings. For all their talk of love for Coco, they don't have any qualms of it happening. For all their talk of how close-knitted a family we are, they are determined to keep their money theirs and make me spend mine.

There are 6 or 7 of us. If we split the bill up, it is bearable. Each person bears the load of less than $20k. For me alone to bear the bulk, it's a heavy load on me. My elder sister said this,"Those who have money, fork it out. " The spirit behind it was to encourage everybody to pool the monetary resources together, but it seems to me they have taken it to mean that 'I don't have money' is a convenient excuse to bill themselves out of the need to pay.

A Mixture of Prayer and Worry

I had a big fight with my siblings.

All six of them wanted my father to delay his surgery or go to a restructured hospital for his treatment - because of the high costs involved at the private hospital. They kept insisting that my father was not ready for the surgery. My father sank into a state of helplessness and hopelessness again. I was sad to see him like that.

I asked the high-EQ Coco if I could be in the wrong. If not, how could six of them were unanimous in wanting my father to go to the restructured hospital or delay his surgery?

Coco felt that if she were them, she would think that I was being selfish. 'You made the decision. The choice (of the hospital) is yours. Yet you want us to pay for it!'

Hmm ... that makes sense.

But William said,"How can wanting  to spend more on your father for a treatment be selfish? You mean you like spending more? They are the selfish ones. They want to save money at the expense of your father's life."

I confided in a close colleague and she said,"Because it's my father, if he wants the private hospital, I will pay for it. If we don't trust the doctor or the hospital, it will make us anxious or uncertain, and it will affect us mentally and physically."

I decided to liaise in secret with the private hospital. I arranged for the surgery to be booked on Monday. Fortunately or unfortunately, the clinic called me when I was unavailable, and it called my sister to inform her about the details of the surgery, and my siblings were in the know.

Most of them came to 'accept' it, or at least, they stopped shouting and screaming at me or pressuring my father to go their way.

My elder sister drove us to the hospital for the pre-admission today.

The actual admission will be done on Monday.

I was happy at first, after the admission was confirmed.

Then, in the evening, as I walked home with Baby from her ballet class, fear suddenly gripped me.

Will anything happen to my father during the surgery?

Will there be any complication that prolongs the stay in the hospital, like the last time?

Will I lose my father?

I tried thinking for an answer in vain.

The only answer is prayer.

Please pray for my father for a smooth and successful surgery, and a speedy recovery to normality.

Good News :)

My father was discharged from the hospital after a 43-day tumultuous stay.

He couldn't wait to get out of that place, and I totally understood it.

I already felt like it was an eternity when I stayed at the hospital for 3 days! The treatment for my excessive bleeding after a caesarian was utterly painful. You get broken sleep every 4 hours - for medication or blood-pressure taking. You get worried about whether there would be more complications that require more painful treatment. And in my father's case, he had to worry about the hospital bill that jumped by thousands every night.

He got ready to leave at 11am and made a big fuss when the nurse came around just before he left to feed him through his tube. He refused to stay any longer. But it was all good in the end.

That happened nearly 3 months ago.

He has been home, with milk fed through a tube that goes into his stomach.

It has been miserable for a man who loves food.

Although the doctor mentioned that my father could have another surgery done within one to three months to get his remaining oesophagus reconnected to his stomach so that he could consume food through mouth normally again, my elder sister insisted that the doctor was giving us false hope. She said that the internet says that patients with perforated oesophagus normally do the reconnection within six months to one year.

It was bleak for me, at least. And I think my father suspected it to be the case too. We just stopped talking about the reconnection so that he didn't feel so bad about it.

My mother stopped cooking. Everybody abstained from eating in his presence. We even tried not to mention 'eat', 'food', 'hungry', 'lunch' and other food-related words when he was in earshot.

Last Thursday, when my fifth sister took my father for a review at a restructured hospital and enquired about the possibility of the reconnection surgery, the doctor was positive that my father was ready for it. However, he said that he had no experience with my father's case ie. having a two-part surgery for a perforated oesophagus. He had only done surgeries that remove and reconnect the oesophagus in one sitting. He also insisted on doing a scope to measure the length of the remaining oesophagus, which my father absolutely resisted. The breaking point for my father was: the doctor stated that there was a possibility of the reconnected oesophagus leaking or disconnecting, and if that happened, my father would have to survive on milk that feeds through his nose, for life!

The next day, we took him to the surgeon who operated on him to remove a large part of his oesophagus. We checked with him if my father was fit enough to have the remaining oesophagus reconnected to his stomach. And he said yes, after some checking and questioning. He needed to check with the cardiologist if the heart is strong enough for the second operation though.

We had tentatively booked the surgery some time next week.

I am excited about it. My father will be able to eat again!

This surgery will set us back by yet another $30k - $40k.

My sisters, as usual, hope that he goes to the restructured hospital to save costs, but I am glad that my father insists on going private. I don't know how we are going to pay the bill. As it is, we haven't settled the last bill yet. Even the surgeon urged us to go to the restructured hospital to save costs. But I know  this doctor is the only one we can entrust our father's life with.

The restructured hospital doctor mentioned that to survive a perforated oesophagus is very rare. To survive an operation from a perforated oesophagus is yet rarer. And to survive a second operation from a perforated oesophagus is the rarest! He probably never saw it (I assume this myself - the way he put it!). So how can my father go to him?

Please continue to keep my father and our medical bill that is under review in your prayer. I find that prayer had been a source of comfort and solace to my father when he was in the hospital. And it has been powerful. For so many times when situations were life-threatening, we prayed, and my father became well. For a high-risk patient, coupled with old-age complications and weaker-than-average heart and lungs due to heavy smoking, it was nothing short of a miracle that my father's life-threatening conditions became better or well over and over again.

I overheard my fifth sister telling my father that he should follow her to church after he was well and he nodded his head. For a proud man who proclaimed that he was his own god, I can't help but sometimes wonder if this incident is something that God 'allows' to happen to bring my father to Him? I can't imagine my father opening his heart to God in an otherwise strong and healthy physique.

Please pray for us.

A Date with Mother at Chihuly Lounge

My mother had mentioned that she had poor appetite. 

I called Chiluny Lounge to reserve a table for 2 adults and 1 child for an Afternoon Tea and we were there the next day.

I read that the Lounge serves 8 courses for Tea, and the mini dishes looked delectable on every blog and website.

First course: passion fruit drink with crackers and their special XO chilli sauce

The crackers were nothing out of the ordinary. I am no fan of passion fruit, but the drink was not repulsive to me. It was light and thirst-quenching.

Second course: Beef Wellington

We enjoyed it. Tender meat with a thin layer of crust wrapped around it. Although there seemed to be a hint of wasabi, it didn't hinder me from enjoying it at all.

Then I am lost here. Some said that this three-tier rack consists of 2 courses, but unless it actually consists of 3 courses, I can't seem to locate 8 courses in all!

But never mind how many courses are there in this rack. It looked so pretty I must have a picture with it.

High class hotels have high class waiters.

He must be the first waiter to take a sharp picture using my DSLR, and without a flash at that! 

A closer look at the 3 tiers:

First tier - plain scones and scones with raisins, with the hotel's special buttery cream

I like the scones here better than the ones at The Regent. These are soft on the outside as well as the inside, and the buttery cream is a cross between clotted cream and butter. Love it!

Second tier - cucumber sandwich, smoked chicken sandwich and salmon sandwich

I failed to catch what the waiter said for the second one from the left but it could be chicken mayonnaise sandwich.

Third tier - desserts (raspberry macarons, cheesecakes, passion fruit tarts and chocolates)

 Sixth course: Berries (strawberry, blueberry and raspberry) with cream

Seven course: raspberry sorbet ice-cream

I am not a sorbet person. It is just too sour for me.

Eighth course: kuehs and chocolates

The waitress pushed the cart to us and we made our choices

Baby didn't like the insides of the chocolates

We thought these green orchids in test tubes hanging from the ceiling display were really pretty and creative!

The ambience at Ritz Carlton Hotel was peaceful and classy. There were normal table-and-chair seats as well as lounge seats which we were led to. The lounge was flooded with natural light that came in from the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

The servers were a mixture of foreign talents consisting of 1 caucasian, some filipinos and at least one other nationality that I could not tell. She looked Chinese, but didn't engage us in Mandarin when I was explaining what she said to my mother. All in all, the servers were polite and attentive although I could be overly sensitive to the 'are you sure you belong here?' vibe emitted from the male caucasian server.

The available beverages: ice teas and hot coffees

I am alien to ang moh teas. The only coffees I know are the frappucinos from Coffee Bean but I didn't want to have coffee for fear of being too filling. I had to rely on the waiter's recommendation - Earl Grey.

Each person can have a pot of tea throughout the afternoon. I asked for one pot first in case Earl Grey was not our cup of tea, but it turned out to be acceptable to us, so we opted for Earl Grey again for the second pot.

The afternoon tea cost $49++ per set. It used to have child's price for the tea but it seems to have been done away. However, the nice waiter allowed me to share my set with Baby. I would not take it as a common practice though.

Overall, we enjoyed the afternoon tea at Chihuly Lounge.

Why Primary One Registration is Similar to PSLE

As Baby's birth date is 8 years apart from Coco's, I didn't have the privilege of enrolling Baby at Phase 1, the phase that allows those who have existing siblings in the school to enrol without worries, at Primary One registration exercise this year.

For both girls, I had to register them at Phase 2A2, the alumni phase for alumni who didn't join the alumni association.

So after 8 years, I had to go through the tormenting and stressful exercise again.

I recall following the statistics on the school website (the school would update the P1 enrolment statistics on a daily basis like what Nanhua Primary School did this year) closely. Every day, I would try to calculate in vain the chance of Coco being enrolled in William's alma mater. Although during that time, there was no cap on the number of applicants for 2A2, I was very worried as it was a baby-boom year. The numbers at Phases 1 and 2A1 doubled those of previous years'. If the number at 2A2 also doubled, the school would go into balloting.

Every day, I would tell William that I was worried that we had to ballot. He would dismiss my worry saying that there hadn't been any balloting done at 2A2 in the history of P1 registration.

Thankfully, much to my relief, the number of enrolment at 2A2 remained similar to the previous years' and Coco got in the school without any drama.

This year, most of us were caught by surprise what the Prime Minister announced at last year's National Day Speech Rally in August, that 40 seats would be reserved for Phases 2B and 2C. As the deadline for alumni to join the alumni association, and 'upgrade' themselves to 2A1, was 30 June, those who did not join the association could not join it in time. Talk about unfairness!

But thankfully, Baby was enrolled in Coco's and William's alma mater without any drama as well.

When I look back at the whole episode, I feel that there are a few similarities between P1 registration and PSLE, something that I am not too foreign with:

1) People withhold information from one another.

I am quite certain that some people were privy to the information about the 40-seat reservation policy for Phases 2B and 2C before the Prime Minister had announced it. For some reason, this year, we saw the number of applicants at 2A1 shoot up. Historically, Coco's alma mater always had more applicants at 2A2 for the last 7 or 8 years as reflected on its website. However, this year, 2A1 had about 14 applicants more than 2A2. It was most unusual!

Then a forummer revealed that actually his alumni association had told them that there would be changes to P1 registration and he would only stand to benefit if he joined the association.

Such withholding of information reminds me of PSLE preparation when parents or children do not want to share their resources or tutors' contacts.

2) People discourage others from doing more so as to eliminate competition.

A few years ago, a mother on my Facebook asked for opinion on whether she should be a parent volunteer as a highly sought-after school in terms of the number of applicants.

Just about every single contribution asked her not to, citing different reasons. One of the reasons that stood out was: you should go for a school that is more holistic. Academic-driven ones only focus on one aspect, the academic.

It is quite similar to how others telling one that certain tuition centres are no good during PSLE preparation, and so should not go for tuition at those centres, or those who professed 'I never study at home' who happen to do very well in tests and exams.

Then, this year, it surprised me that many mothers enrolled their P1-going children at top schools or very good schools!

The poor mother who had asked for opinion could not get a place for her child at the school she had given up her parent-volunteer opportunity at. In the end, she had to register her child at Phase 2C Supplementary, a phase for those who didn't manage to get in their preferred at earlier phases, whether it was based on connection or distance. It meant that she would have lost out on schools that were generally more popular with parents. It also meant that her choice of schools would be limited.

This is similar to PSLE preparation where children who believe that their friends who 'never study' could really end up not studying, or not studying as hard as they should. In the end, these children realised that their friends had not been telling the truth all along when results were released, but it's all too late.

3) People would do anything and everything to increase their chance to do better than their competitor.

At P1 registration, I was surprised to hear from a colleague that at her husband's school, which happened to be Coco's alma mater, more than 20 teachers have children who are due to register for P1 in 4 years' time, which is the dragon year.

More often than not, newly transferred teachers at this school have young children waiting to enter a primary school.

It gives me insight on what even teachers would do to up their chance at P1 registration.

When I was intensely worried about Baby's P1 registration, the same colleague told me that her husband had mentioned that the principal at his school was very busy those few days. She was busy meeting parents. Parents were walking in and out of the principal's office and asking a favour from the principal ie. to make their children's entry to the school certain.

The principal was kept so busy that she decided to put a stop to it. She sent an email to the whole school asking the staff not to entertain parents' request to meet the principal!

At PSLE, we see the ugly faces of parents and students when they suddenly become oral or composition experts, foretelling what their friends say or write would warrant a 'fail', so that it could affect their friends' morale during PSLE.

4) People feel that the process is 'unfair' to them.

I do not need to say more about P1 registration. Parents in phases 2B and 2C feel that it is unfair that the alumni applicants are not capped at a number while they are left with the remaining 'unwanted' seats. A lot of reasons and arguments are shouted out by the 2B and 2C parents to rationalise why the alumni should get lost from their alma maters, whether they are self-serving or selfish does not matter.

At PSLE, parents feel that it is unfair when oral topics are easier for the earlier or latter group of students. The mainstream students' parents feel that it is unfair that GEP students only need to hit 250 as T-score to qualify for the EESIS award while the mainstream students had to meet the higher T-score of  more than 260. The mainstream students' parents also feel that it is unfair that the GEP students are more sought-after by top schools during the DSA (Direct School Admission) than the mainstream students.

5) People get jealous of others who get a better school or result.

It is especially blatant or obvious when you visit a P1 registration thread on kiasuparents forum. The sense of jealousy is emitted strongly when those 2B and 2C parents do not want co-existence with the 2A (alumni) parents. They want elimination of Phase 2A so that they have the popular schools for themselves.

A mother who was a parent-volunteer on my Facebook used words like 'disgusted' to describe the alumni, knowing that I placed my child in a popular school at the alumni phase. It turned out that she was having a hard time during P1 registration. It sounded like jealousy to me.

Jealousy over better T-scores at PSLE, and subsequently enrolment at better schools need no elaboration. A mother whose child got into a good girls' school insisted that her child's school was on the same footing as the top girls' school, and constantly compared the two girls' schools and concluding that both were similar in their academic achievements also tells me the mother was jealous of my child getting into a better school despite being better in her T-score than her daughter's by fewer than 10 points.



It was not a conscious effort to type out a list of similarities between P1 registration and PSLE. Perhaps it is because I had gone through PSLE 1.5 years ago. Coupled with the intense P1 registration I went through this year, I have fairly strong feelings about both processes. The list just came out like that as I typed, one point after another.

Both are high-stake processes which parents who bother about their children's studies would be very concerned with. My wish for these processes would be that there could be more sharing and genuine opinion to be given when asked, the way you hope someone else would share with you or give you when you solicit for help or opinion. Both processes are stressful on their own. We really don't need to create enemies or competitors out of our acquaintances or friends while going through them. But judging from the fact that most of us can't be happy for another when another does better or have a better situation, I think we have a long way to go.

A Misunderstood Job

I was reading newsfeed on Facebook when an educator friend posted a poster reading:

I have been a lousy friend because I have been busy being an awesome mother.

Her sister posted a sarcastic comment.

My friend tried explaining her exhaustion: after school, she had to attend a workshop till 5pm, then rushed to pick up her younger kid before going home to cook dinner. After that, she had to revise work with her P6 daughter. Her legs were swollen and hadn't the time to rest.

Her sister commented that she was a 'complaint queen'. The 'hero' in me acted up again and I commented that I wouldn't have done all that she did because so many hours at work would have tired me out.

Her sister retaliated by saying that my friend had 'company' and that she hadn't taken a leaf out of their teacher-mothers and grandmothers' book.

I left my comment saying that my sisters are also stuck in the days of their teachers.

Teaching, like motherhood, is such a misunderstood job.

People who are never teachers still see teaching as a half-day job that only requires you to sit in the class and talk to yourself, and after that, mark a little and go home at 1pm!

They thought that children these days are the same as their generation, fearful of teachers, quiet as mice in class.

They don't realise that their mothers and grandmothers didn't need to attend workshops and trainings or even meetings after school.

They don't realise that teaching is a lot more demanding these days.

They don't realise the teachers of yesteryears didn't need to do EPMS, SEM, CIP, TRAISI, Weekly lesson plans, Reflection, detailed lesson plans, lesson observations ... Those teachers probably haven't seen or heard of those terms even, and these are just random terms and things that I just plucked off my head!

For curiosity's sake, I did a count on the number of teachers I have on my Facebook. 20 out of 45, excluding the 2 that were pending on Friends' Request.

And I counted the number of teachers who have left the service. 11. Out of these 11, 5 are mothers who quit as they could not cope with the demands of teaching and the load of motherhood. Interestingly, the other 6 are singles (still single) who were disillusioned or unhappy with the system. Most of them have switched to another field that has nothing to do with teaching.

I am left with 9 existing teachers on my Facebook. Out of these 9, only 1 seems to be genuinely happy with the charges under her. No surprise at all, as she is teaching gifted children in a top school.

I know, I know. I am too old to argue with someone outside the field about the job.

I have had my share of being criticised by my sisters like how my friend's sister did her.

I guess I am still protective of the job, like how I would stand up for motherhood when people with no kid try telling me how to teach mine.